Filed under: iPhone
Wikipedia battle over iPhone trademark
There's something deeply fascinating about article debates at Wikipedia; reading the intricate threads is like eavesdropping on a librarian's convention where the punch has been spiked with PCP. The tumult du jour is the involved discussion on the appropriate naming and disposition of the iPhone article.It seems that the rational question of "What do we put at the wikipedia.org/wiki/iPhone page: the Apple product, the Cisco/Linksys product, or a disambiguation of the two products?" has led to fear, thence to anger and naturally to suffering. The commotion and disagreement apparently attracted the attention of some Cisco employees, who attempted to right the perceived injustice and were promptly chastised. The whole affair has resulted in the virtual lockdown of the iPhone page while tempers and keyboards cool off.
If you want a taste of the secret sauce that helps Wikipedia manage as a self-regulating community, check out the conventions on the naming of articles. Highly gripping; couldn't put it down.
Thanks Adam!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Metryq said 8:15PM on 1-15-2007
The naming of articles is a difficult matter
It isn't just one of your holiday games...
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Mark Gilbert said 7:29PM on 1-15-2007
Well since Wikipedia touts its self as proper, legit encyclopaedia it would seem to make sense to do the disambiguation of the two products. Then the people who go looking for the 'iPhone' entry can decide for themselves exactly which one it was they were after.
Just my 0.02¢
Cheers
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running said 7:37PM on 1-15-2007
There's one more funny part - there are people, who want iPhone in Smartphone category, but there are some, who dont - because "The article smartphone does claim that "A key feature of a smartphone is that additional native applications can be installed on the device"".
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Brock Batsell said 7:39PM on 1-15-2007
I wouldn't really describe it as "a virtual lockdown"; I'm assuming you're referring to semi-protection, which is a way to restrict vandalism to articles that are high-risk targets (such as [[iPhone]], which has attracted vandalism).
@Mark Gilbert:
Wikipedia's naming conventions (linked above by Michael) state that articles should be reside to reduce the amount of effort required to reach articles in most cases. If you have two options, and one of them tends to attract much more readership, then you leave that one as the article and add a hatnote to the top of the page linking to the less-requested article (which is exactly the route taken in this instance). In addition, the article describes the trademark controversy.
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Mark Gilbert said 8:04PM on 1-15-2007
@Brock
Yes I totally agree that the article which attracts the most attention should be the main entry with a hatnote pointing to the other article. I also agree that this should be decided based upon the article which attracts most readership, however Cisco do currently hold the trademark on the iPhone name (although I know that is up for dispute) therefore it would seem to make sense to leave the disambiguation page up.
It is biased to simply assume that most people will go looking for the Apple product. I would hazzard a guess that most people who look on Wikipedia for the word Apple are probably looking for Apple Inc, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Apple Inc should be the main entry. Besides readerhsip levels can change over time, a disambiguation page is an un-biased, neutral way of doing things, the way an encyclopaedia should be.
Cheers
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BJ Nemeth said 8:30PM on 1-15-2007
The issue has nothing to do with trademarks, first use, or bias. It's a simple question of convenience and usability: What article are most people looking for when they search for the word "iPhone"?
If there isn't one clear favorite, then there is a disambiguation page.
Consider the article for "Titanic." Should it point to the legendary ship, or the highest-grossing film of all time about that ship? Common sense might say that the physical ship has priority, since the movie wouldn't exist without the ship that inspired it. But in actual use, the film is so popular that it easily rivals (surpasses?) the ship itself. So a disambiguation page is created, listing not only those most common two usages of "Titanic," but all articles that might share a claim to that name.
In the case of "iPhone," there is a clear favorite. Anyone who disagrees should try a Google search for "iPhone." When I tried one just now, I got 3 non-Apple links in the first 30 Google hits for "iPhone." That's a 9-to-1 ratio, and I suspect the next 30/100/1,000 links lean even more heavily in Apple's favor. That's clearly enough to support the theory that people searching Wikipedia for an article called "iPhone" are probably looking for Apple's product, not Linksys's.
Linksys's product still has a strong claim to the name however, so, as Brocknote stated above, there is a link to the article about the Linksys iPhone at the top of the "iPhone" page.
For the record, Wikipedia certainly doesn't ignore the trademark controversy between Apple and Linksys -- it's covered in detail right there on the iPhone article page, where it belongs.
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Mike Rose said 8:38PM on 1-15-2007
"Virtual lockdown" sounded better than "semi-protected," sorry for the sensationalist take.
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BJ Nemeth said 8:37PM on 1-15-2007
@ Mark Gilbert -- You are obviously correct that readership habits change over time. In the early 1980s, "Tab" meant a diet soft drink for most people. Now that we are deeper in the computer age, most people assume it as the "tab" key on their keyboard.
That's one of the great features of Wikipedia. It is a living, breathing encyclopedia, and it is not written in stone. If the Linksys iPhone gains popularity on a level to contend with Apple's iPhone, then the term would be (rightly) moved to a disambiguation page. If Apple's product fails, and the Linksys phone takes off to great success, then the page would (rightly) point directly to the Linksys iPhone.
One of the policies at Wikipedia is that it is about things the way they are right now, not about things the way they might be in the future. If something changes in the future, then Wikipedia will be edited -- in the future.
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Dan said 11:03PM on 1-15-2007
This is humorous.
Michael is obviously poking gentle fun at the almost Talmudic pedantry of the Wikipedia bureaucracy, and a pedantic Wiki-slapfight breaks out on TUAW.
Delicious! ;-)
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Rus said 7:43AM on 1-16-2007
It is also VERY obvious that Cisco employees (and other biasly Cisco/Linksys factions) are literally TROLLING the web to make fun of anyone talking in Apple's favor about this issue.
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mark said 8:04AM on 1-16-2007
i agree with dan!
it's very funny.
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